2025 Eshelman Innovation
Impact Report
Eshelman Innovation is a healthcare innovation engine that brings entrepreneurial spirit to the rigor of academia to turn groundbreaking ideas into real products and services. We’re here to catalyze ideas for the greater good.
SINCE 2015
- Funded nearly 200 projects across UNC-Chapel Hill
- Generated $268 million in follow-on funding from $35 million of Dr. Fred Eshelman’s donation (a 1:8 return ratio)
- Between Eshelman Innovation funding projects and the follow-on funding, $178 million has gone to Carolina.
Harnessing world-class expertise
AUTOIMMUNE THERAPEUTIC SUMMIT
“Shaping the Future of Autoimmune Therapies” convened investigators, clinicians, industry partners, patient advocates, policymakers, funders and others to identify research needs and opportunities. The summit led to two strategic research grants to fill unmet needs.
BLOCKBUSTER PANEL
A standing-room-only event, “The Future of BioPharma Innovation” shed light on an industry in flux. Speakers included President Obama’s Health and Human Services Secretary, Lilly USA’s top executive, the former president of Lilly Oncology, a former National Cancer Institute director (who also served as interim FDA director) and a founder of the law firm Wyrick Robbins.
2025 Milestones
We made strategic grants to advance the autoimmune research of two Carolina researchers — one who is pioneering a first-in-class “inverse vaccine” that retrains the immune system rather than shutting it down; and another who seeks to block a specific protein to prevent intestinal injury caused by inflammatory bowel disease.
This two-year fellowship program nurtures talent and technology. Academy fellow Brianna Vickerman made the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for her Light Activated Therapeutics project. The newest fellow, medicinal chemist Anwar Hossain, is driving a promising Chikungunya drug toward commercialization as part of the broader READDI initiative.
UNC’s SLiCE Core Facility, led by former Translational Academy fellow Andrew Satterlee, is helping develop the next generation of anticancer therapies, including work with Nobel Laureate Aziz Sancar on a combination treatment for glioblastoma. Three new grants are helping position the SLiCE Platform to successfully guide patient care.
Four early-career innovators — McKenna Good, Anwar Hossain, Xinrui Ma and Chelston Ang — received support for entrepreneurial training across a range of promising fields: cancer immunology, cancer radiotherapy, artificial intelligence and antiviral drug development.
READDI continues to shape and align global strategy around pandemic therapeutics. READDI has been instrumental in building the worldwide Therapeutics Development Coalition, which is scheduled to launch in 2026.
With help from AWS, we launched a next-generation, AI-powered venture studio approach that reimagines how universities translate research into real-world impact. We accelerate digital health innovation by harnessing faculty expertise, student creativity and generative AI tools.
A Venture Studio success story, Goldie has been adopted by multiple counties and a major health system in North Carolina, as well as the City of Baltimore. Goldie’s powerful AI engine detects individuals at risk of overdose at unprecedented rates — 300% more than hospital referrals — connecting them to lifesaving care.
